7 Effective Ways To Relieve Splitting Headaches After Crying

Tears are a combination of mucus, oil, and water coming out of tear ducts in your eyes. Whenever you cry, these tears make their way through the sides of your eyelids. They even go through the nasal cavity, which explains why you also have a runny nose for every bout of crying.

Have you ever wondered why your head starts to ache right after you cry? You’re not alone because other people experience it as well. You might be wondering why do you get headaches after crying. Fortunately, medical experts have found out a few root causes.

Why Do You Get A Splitting Headache After Crying?

• Stress hormones – One of the root causes of headache are your hormones. Whether you cry due to tension, stress, or sadness, you release stress hormones from your body, and they usually cause migraines or light headaches.
• Dehydration – The second root cause is dehydration when you lose too much water from your body due to crying. The tears that flow down from your eyes contain water, which means you also lose a little amount of water during your emotional moment.
• Sinus Problems – Since tears travel through the nasal cavity, intense crying often results to a throbbing pain between the eyes that lead to headaches.

How To Relieve Splitting Headaches After Crying

Whether you cry due to your emotions or stress, you will start to experience the headache by feeling a dull sense of pain. Then, you will experience pressure around your head as well as your forehead. You will also notice that when you cried longer than usual, you will also feel aches on your neck, scalp, and shoulders. Lastly, dizziness follows when the crying becomes too intense, and dizziness comes in as your headaches worsen.

Headaches should not be taken for granted even if it’s caused by crying. If not treated properly, it can lead to other complications on your body such as stomach pains, nausea, vision blurs, and ulcers. It can also affect your performance at work or in school as headaches from crying distract you. It’s best to relieve your headaches the moment you stop crying.

You can choose to wait for the headache to pass, but it’s not a guarantee that it will go away. There are a number of simple ways to effectively relieve headaches after crying and most methods don’t require consultation from a doctor. With that, here are the following methods to relieve headaches after crying.

Rehydrate your body

As one of the root causes of headache is dehydration, drinking liquids is another way to relieve headaches after crying.

By drinking water, juice, or any other beverage, you replenish your body and you calm down the stress levels that brought you to crying in the first place.

Avoid drinking alcoholic beverages though, because it only dehydrates you more and makes your headache even worse.

Take a needed amount of rest

There is truth to the words “cry me to sleep” as you need to take some rest to relieve headaches after crying. You can sleep it off as you go to bed or you can take a short nap; either way, resting your mind (and your eyes) for a short time soothe your nerves and soothe your head. Just give yourself a few hours of sleep and you’ll feel better the moment you wake up.

Meditate

You can also take time to meditate in order to relieve headaches after crying. To do this, close your eyes and take a deep breath. Then perform simple breathing exercises by deep inhales before exhales. You can also perform yoga as a way to meditate your body and relieve your headaches.

Eat comfort food

You may have a tendency to eat after a bout of crying, hence the term “emotional eating”. On the other hand, headaches can sometimes be solved by simply eating any food. With that, you can feast on so-called comfort foods or snacks and meals that you eat in order to relieve headaches after crying.

To begin with, chocolate is one of these comfort food that helps because this sweet snack releases endorphins that give you a good feeling. Pasta is also an example of comfort food that helps relieve headaches after crying.

Take light exercise

As soon as you’re done crying, you can relieve those headaches by doing some light exercises. One example is a leisurely stroll to wherever you want to go, whether around the park or to your favorite grocery store. Walking calms your mind because it diverts your attention away from the source that triggered your crying.

Another example of relieving headaches is by light dancing. This exercise can take away the headache by also relieving your nerves and diverting your mind’s attention away from the triggers. However, don’t go overboard and perform intense body movements as they won’t help relieve the throbbing pain.

Playing puzzles

Jigsaw puzzles, tangrams, and other brain-teaser puzzles also help you relieve headaches after crying because they primarily divert your attention from the pain and make you focus on the games. Plus, the fun factor and the challenge from these games also alleviate stress, as well as give you a chance to regain your composure after crying.

Take pain-relieving medicine (if nothing else helps)

Over-the-counter analgesics such as ibuprofen and paracetamol help relieve headaches after crying. These pain-relievers are recommended for people suffering from headaches and migraines due to stress, and they can also relieve aches due to crying. One tablet or capsule is enough to relieve the pain and nothing more. Make sure you consult your doctor before taking any medication.

These are the various ways to relieve headaches after crying, but in case the headache persists it is best that you consult your physician so you can get prescription medication for your persistent headaches.

Crying is a normal human emotional reaction, however, if it results in you feeling like your head is split in two afterward then you should take the necessary steps to prevent this from happening again.